Elise Gameplay - TPH Way

Elise is in desperate need of change. She is one of the increasing number of champions that Riot has left without the ability to influence a game after nerfs/reworks. Due to doing nothing useful in particular at the moment it's hard to talk about who Elise is or what she should be. Instead we should think about her hey-day of Season 3 to define who she is as a champion and go forward from there. Warning: this is a long post, but there is a TLDR at the bottom.

Who is Elise?

Flavor-wise, Elise is seductive and deadly. Think the movie "Let Me In" or the song "Pretty Noose". Frankly, this is a trope that is far too common in League of Legends and falls completely flat on Elise in particular due to the grotesque spider legs growing out of her back. She should just embrace her role as a predator who could be around any corner.

In-game, Elise is an assassin with strong 1 on 1 capability and high potential for catching her enemies out of position. Her spiderlings give her a safe jungle clear (especially for an assassin) and Rappel makes her very mobile in the jungle. When it comes to team-fighting Elise has historically been one of the worst in LoL. You should feel like the game is pretty well in hand before you hit level 16 with Elise.

What do players like about Elise?

I've found that people who like to play Elise enjoy the following aspects of her kit:

1. Expressing your skill through long, keyboard-intense combos that require manual dexterity (Q > W > E > R > E > W > Q is her base combo that you learn first and riff off of later). This is probably the biggest pride point for Elise players
2. Setting yourself apart by how creatively you use your skills not by how well you aim them
3. Using spiderlings to tank jungle camps. It sounds simple but it is a big deal to Elise players

Where did Elise go wrong?

In stark contrast to her current iteration, Elise used to be a problem due to having just too much of everything:

1. High base damage combined with low scaling made buying offensive items inefficient
2. Due to aforementioned base damage she could buy purely defensive items and still kill her foes 1 on 1
3. Long duration stun on an assassin, even if its a narrow skillshot that can be blocked by minions
4. She could gank 24/7 due to her extreme combo of spiderling tanks + Skittering Frenzy sustain

How do we get her back on the right track?

First and foremost, this is not a post about specific numbers. This is about changing the factors that make her kit problematic.

Spider Swarm - Currently this passive reflects the duality of Elise's character (beautiful human female who lures her prey in then reveals herself as a monstrous spider) by having her spider army appear only in her spider form. As mentioned, its a rediculous premise considering she has massive spider legs growing on her back, chitinous tendrils instead of hair, and presumably spinnerets tucked somewhere underneath. Her spider swam should be active all the time and be recharged by using any ability, whether human form or spider form. Players love to have their spiderlings tank for them in the jungle, but aren't as passionate about them dealing damage. This is also a form of hidden damage that many players, especially new players, don't realize is so potent. Elise's spiderlings should do quite a bit less damage than they currently do and perhaps even be a bit less tanky (which will be balanced out by making it easier to recharge them). This also gives players a bit more agency when it comes to spiderlings tanking, you now have to have a plan about how quickly you use abilities to make sure you have spiderlings ready to tank for you rather than just vomit them all out as soon as you hit a camp.

Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite - Neurotoxin is probably the biggest problem in Elise's kit. Having a % missing health execute on Venomous Bite is fine, but Neurotoxin should be reworked to have proper AP scaling to encourage Elise players to buy offensive items. That being said, changing Venomous Bite to lose the % missing health damage but have AP scaling works as well.

Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy - Volatile Spidering feels a bit out of place in Elise's kit as a champ focused on picking out individual targets, but it serves the important role of reducing clear time with AOE damage and has a fun combo with Venomous Bite. Skittering Frenzy should be removed in favor of a new skill, Web Pull/Lasso (boring name, I know, but the Creative team can come up with better). Web Pull/Lasso - Elise fires a sticky lasso of webbing and pulls a single enemy champion to her current location. This skill is not meant to compete with Blitz/Naut/Thresh in the Hand of God gamewinning pull arena. It should only be long enough to grab someone just on the other side of a jungle wall and would primarily be used as a combo piece for Elise to surprise her prey from a bush with, so perhaps have 650-750 range. Web Trap//Lasso should do a small amount of damage, which I will explain later.

Cocoon / Rappel - Rappel is, in my opinion, one of the best skills in LoL. It creates so many fun gameplay moments and interesting decisions and is a huge skill check for Elise players that I wouldn't dream of changing it. Cocoon, on the other hand, misses the mark. Spiders don't go around flinging webs at their prey, and the few that do still reel the prey in afterwards (see Web Pull/Lasso). They do, however, build webs to trap prey who wander onto them. In the spirit of this and to combo with Web Pull/Lasso, I propose a new skill, Web Trap (I haven't gotten better at naming skills in the last 10 minutes). Web Trap - Elise commands her Spiderlings to create a web at a nearby location. Enemies who contact the web are rooted for X seconds and take damage from Elise's spiderlings. With this skill in place Elise starts to truly feel like a sit-and-wait predator. Imagine setting a web at the bush near Stone Bros while you are counterjungling your opponent. When the top laner comes to check on you the trap is set: you can now either Lasso them into you and pound away or take off into the jungle. It also combos with Lasso, letting Elise drop a web then pull an enemy into it.

What does this accomplish?

1. Elise is now encouraged to build offensively, instead of being a weird assassin/off tank due to not being rewarded for buying offensive items
2. Players can still avoid a ton of damage in the jungle by using her spiderlings properly, but she won't regenerate missing health with Skittering Frenzy anymore. This should reduce how often she can gank greatly, and in particular she shouldn't be able to just chain gank all the lanes while topping off her health in the jungle in between
3. Team fights were either incredibly boring or frustrating for Elise. She was either a stunbot or had to kamikaze dive the back lines during team fights, which as we all know did not often work out well for her. Now she can use Rappel to position herself for a Lasso on the enemy carries, or just soften up opponents with her properly scaling abilities, but she is still overall a weak teamfighter which is just part of her identity.
4. The new skills retain her long combos, but also add new ones. Spreading her damage over multiple abilities also encourages proper comboing and prevents her from popping opponents with just one or two skills
5. Without a stun, enemies always have a chance to fight back, even if they can't run
6. Reduces "hidden" damage from spiderlings
7. Allows Elise to spend significant time in Human form in the jungle.
8. Reinforces her role as a jungler with new skills that take advantage of jungle topology.

TLDR

1. Change her abilities to have AP scaling but reduced base damages. The % health damage in her kit is the main culprit. No more building tanky while doing a bunch of damage anyway.
2. Spiderlings are weaker, in particular offensively, but are always active and recharge from using any skill. Less hidden damage and force players to take a more active role in managing spiderlings.
3. Remake Skittering Frenzy into Web Pull/Lasso, a short ranged hook that does a small amount of damage. No more healing from jungle camps while also making her safer in team fights and giving new combos.
4. Remake Cocoon into Web Trap, a ground targeted root that activates when enemies contact it. Can't have a long duration stun on an assassin, so instead she gets a skill that reinforces her Spider theme and combos with the rest of her kit better.
5. Spread her damage around over more skills (Neurotoxin, Venomous Bite, Volatile Spiderling, Web Pull/Lasso, Web Trap) to encourage comboing and put more of the damage into Elise herself rather than her spiderlings.